—No coach wants to admit this, and Fred Hill certainly didn’t, but Rutgers looked gassed in the second half. Florida bludgeoned them in the paint (46-30 was the final points-in-the-paint tally) and the Scarlet Knights short-armed a ton of shots (after halftime Mike Rosario shot 1-of-7, RU shot 11-of-29 and 1-of-9 from downtown).

—On the positive side, the Scarlet Knights handled the ball as well as could be expected against Florida’s trademark pressure. Hamady N’Diaye continues to play better (12 points, 4 boards, 3 blocks), and Dane Miller (9 points, 4-of-4 shooting) is showing flashes of being a real player.

—Jonathan Mitchell (6 points, 2 rebounds, 4 turnovers) didn’t have the game he was looking for against his old team, but Jersey guy Dan Werner (4 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals) turned in a solid effort against his state university.

—Billy Donovan made one pivotal halftime adjustment, telling his team to attack the basket, and it changed the game.

—For all the foibles of its format, holding the Legends Classic at Boardwalk Hall was a success compared to last year’s disaster at the Rock, and the Gazelle Group should come back here. The crowds were solid and the place had both charm and life. Their best move was bringing the Atlantic City High School band in as entertainment. They rocked the house. Two other favorite touches: a man sitting courtside wearing a gray velour suit; urinal cakes with the words “South Jersey” emblazoned on them, just in case you forgot where you were.

Fred Hill quotes:

“It was a good test. It tells us where we have to go. We have a lot of work to do to get better.”

“We’ve got a very inexperience team and I think that showed tonight in stretches.”

On whether fatigue affected his team in the second half: “If you would have come to practice last week and saw the three days of practice that we had, those three days were harder than these two days back-to-back. We went three days and I’m telling you we got after it . . . I don’t think it’s fatigue at all. I think Florida is a pretty good team . . . they’ve been up and down shooting wise., but they made some deep, deep threes on us. They buried some big-time shots and you’ve got to give them credit for that.”

Billy Donovan: “I was just proud that, even through we probably had some fatigue and were dealing with the emotion last night, our guys really came out and grinded the game out and found a way to win the game.”

Hoops Haven says: We applaud the Hall for being prudent in their handling of the Lawrence situation. Regarding Oliver, this is no surprise. A message needed to be sent to the big fella. We’ll see if he gets it.